February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
This week, prosecutors in the case were granted a continuance and a possible new trial date in March.
The possibility has also emerged that there might be two trials in the case: one for the three men being held in Philadelphia and a separate trial for the man accused of actually shooting McConigley.
The trial of the four men had been set for Monday, Oct. 21, a day before the fourth anniversary of the fatal shooting in West Philadelphia. However, prosecutors requested the continuance because the man they believe fired the fatal shot, Marlon Mullings, has not yet been extradited from his native Jamaica.
Philadelphia prosecutors and the Department of justice in Washington, D.C., have been jointly pursuing the extradition of Mullings since May of this year. However, they have been frustrated in their efforts and there are no immediate indications as to when Mullings will be sent back to Philadelphia to face trial.
The fact that Mullings will possibly face the death penalty has been a complicating factor in the extradition effort.
“It’s been a long, slow and tedious process,” assistant district attorney Jude Conroy said last week.
Conroy said March 10 has now been listed as a trial date for the other three accused in the case. He is hopeful that Mullings would be extradited back to the U.S. before that date.
Even if he were to be returned, however, there would likely not be enough time to prepare a case, both prosecution and defense, before the March 10 trial date of his three co-accused, Conroy acknowledged.
Hence the growing possibility of separate trials.
Conroy said that another factor in the request for a continuance had been that one of the defense attorneys in the case had been involved in the just concluded trial of Ira Einhorn, the so-called “Unicorn Killer.”
McConigley was gunned down on Oct. 22, 1999 as he was chasing a gang of four men who had just robbed his business partner.
McConigley had come to the U.S. in 1987 and had opened a stucco business with his partner, Sean Clinton.
On the day of the murder, police say, Clinton was confronted by two of the four-man gang and robbed at gunpoint of $560 in payroll cash at the garage premises used by the company he owned with McConigley, CMAC Construction.
McConigley arrived in his car just as the four robbers were escaping and gave chase. Moments later, McConigley was dead after the escaping gang fired shots through the windshield of his car.
It was 15 months before the first arrests were made in the case, but early last year police arrested twins Marlon and Allen Pitter and another man, Cerrone Furman.